Rocks that Move

I thought about taking a break before starting this, but I'm just too excited!! I am going to enjoy this, but first: breaking news. Peter Forsberg got traded to the Nashville Predators. For a Red Wings fan, this is potentially big, bad news. Forsberg is one of the all-time greatest Wing-killers, and the Predators are a definite stepping-stone to the Stanley Cup. Adding Forsberg in Nashville could be disastrous for my team. That said, he's likely to get hurt. He usually does. Here's hoping for a knee-injury or concussion! I mean... I hope he's healthy. It'll be a great challenge!

Onto the list...

50. PATTON (1970)
directed by Franklin Schaffner
starring George C. Scott; Karl Malden

It is funny. George C. Scott was the ultimate competitor. According to Karl Malden, Scott caused a major delay in filming one day playing ping-pong with a champion table tennis star. Fully dressed in his General Patton outfit, he kept losing, but wanted to win just one set, even if it took all night. Yet, he refused to accept his Oscar, feeling that forcing actors to "compete" against each other was wrong. He stated, "The ceremonies are a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons." It is a shame he felt that way, because it was a well-deserved Oscar. But I admire him for his principles. The fact is that his Patton was a charicature, and Scott may have felt like he did not truly capture the real man that Patton was. Personally, I am glad he didn't. I love the charicature, that maniacal gleam in Patton's eye, and only George C. Scott could have done it. His Patton is one of the greatest charicatures in film history, and one of those parts where you simply cannot imagine anyone else doing it so successfully. He creates a man that is a full-blown, selfish, loud-mouthed, asshole egomaniac... and yet you root for him the entire film. How is that possible? It is possible because of George C. Scott.

Karl Malden, on the other hand, plays General Omar Bradley straight, and he does it brilliantly. He is the perfect foil for Scott's Patton. I love the scene where Bradley is finally the boss and puts Patton in his place. Patton thanks Bradley for getting him back into the war, but it was not Bradley's decision. If it were up to him, Patton would not have gotten the commission. Malden does the scene with perfect inflection. So long Patton's inferior; he is suddenly a father-figure, and yet he has not changed at all. Hmm. When you look at the list of best supporting actors that year, it is stunning not to see Malden's name there as the winner of the Oscar. He was not even nominated.

My favorite scene is not the big speech in front of the flag at the beginning, or the wonderfully staged battle scenes, the "prayer" scene, or even that hilarious part where the British commander promises air superiority... and seconds later they are bombed. I love the scene early in the movie when Patton is being taken to see the battle site where the Americans lost at Kasserine Pass. Patton demands that their jeep be taken down a different road, insisting that the battle site is somewhere else. Perplexed, the driver and Bradley agree to go down the unbeaten path. They come upon some ancient ruins, and Patton gets out of the jeep.

"It was here. The battle was here. The Carthaginians defending the city were attacked by three Roman legions. The Carthaginians were proud and brave but they couldn't hold. They were massacred. Arab women stripped them of their tunics and their swords and lances. The soldiers lay naked in the sun. Two thousand years ago. I was here."

Shortly before this scene, before Patton has even arrived, we are taken to the site at Kasserine, mere hours after the battle has ended. The battlefield mirrored Patton's very words, right down to the women stripping the soldiers of their boots and uniforms.

49. GHOST WORLD (2001)
directed by Terry Zwigoff
starring Thora Birch, Steve Buscemi, and Scarlett Johansson

This film captures the purpose of this list well. On my "best" movies list, it only comes in around #100. On my "favorite" movies list, it is #49. That said, I am unsure what to say about this one. It is so unique and unlike anything I've ever seen before. There is this fine line between being a cheesy, teen comedy and being a work of art, and this movie dances on that line... but falls on the side of artfilm. I can picture a lot of people starting it and really liking it, but later walking out saying, "What the hell was that crap?" So be it.

Thora Birch's "Enid Coleslaw" character is hard to pin down. She is my youngest sister. Unique. Unambitious. A negative world view. Pretty, but with no attempt to show it. She is brilliantly smart, but has no clue what to do with that intelligence. Witty, but sometimes that wit is acidic. This is where she veers off from my sister. She is kind of mean. The famous line at the graduation ceremony when the girl in the wheelchair gives her speech fits here perfectly: "I liked her better when she was an alcoholic crack addict. She gets in one car wreck and all of a sudden she's Little Miss Perfect and everybody loves her." Scarlett Johansson's character agrees.

The two friends split after this. Johansson's "Rebecca" realizes that life has to go on. She gets a job. She starts to grow up. Enid, instead, plays a mean practical joke on a lonely dork played by Steve Buscemi. Buscemi's character is one of the most pathetic characters in film. No life. No friends. He collects old records, and does little else. Enid befriends him. You never really know why, aside of the fact that he is "the opposite of everything she hates." He is a kindred spirit, and yet a bad example for Enid. Enid tries to get her new friend a girlfriend, and the film could get cheesy from this point on, but it doesn't. What happens is totally unique to this film. It is a comedy, but it is one unlike anything else.

A lot of reviews and summaries describe Enid as "becoming an adult in a modern world" and "reaching maturity and a different view of life" as a result of this friendship. I just don't see this. I think Steve Buscemi's character gains something, perhaps, but Enid seems to get lost. The ending of the movie haunts me. I am not sure I understand it, but I see it as rather sad, albeit beautiful. I do not think Enid learns much of anything, but something does happen to her. You have to see it to know what I mean. I probably should have watched it again before writing this, but if I did that for every movie, I'd never get this list done!

One last thing, speaking of my little sister. The movie is based on an undergroud comicbook by Daniel Clowes. This is not the only "comic book" movie on my list, but being that it IS a comic book movie, I suspect the above-mentioned sister might really like it. She just signed on to Netflix. I hope she'll check it out.

48. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE (2000)
directed by Kar Wai Wong
starring Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung

This was my birthday gift this year from me mum, who sent me a Border's gift card. Gift cards are the perfect opportunity to buy those over-priced Criterion films that all us art-film snobs love, but cannot afford to buy that often. It is also the very first DVD I ever watched from Netflix. Thanks, Goatdog!

It is a romantic love story with a "film noir" feel to it; a beautiful film with deep, vibrant color in a world where it always seems like it is raining. Mr Chow (Tony Leung) moves into an apartment with his wife, around the same time that Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) moves next door with her husband. It is a dark, crowded Hong Kong, via 1962. Soon, the two find out that their spouses are having an affair with one another, and they become friends. But they are just friends. They do not want to stoop down so low as their spouses, but being 1962 Hong Kong, they don't want to get divorced either.

This movie is about romantic tension. They tell one another that they just want to be friends. They believe that the other is serious about it, and they respect it. The truth is that neither of them wants to just be friends. They are alone and abandoned. They want more. They imagine what it would be like to go for it, but they never act upon it. They meet each other in the rain, and hide underneath an awning to stay dry. They are close. Very close. They never make love. They never break their code of honor. It is painful, but it is a better movie for it. There is a tension that makes this movie like a roller-coaster ride where you never get over the top of that big hill. Some people would hate that.

I loved it. I thought it was romantic. It made me feel human; alive. A film like this makes me appreciate the relationship I do have with my wife. Some people are not so lucky. In the end, Mr. Chow realizes that he has made a big mistake. Is it too late to do something about it?

47. SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998)
directed by Steven Spielberg
starring Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon

Eight men go behind enemy lines during the biggest sea-land invasion in history, to save a single man. Mr. Spock would not be happy. The twenty-something minute invasion scene at the beginning is one of the most intense movie-going experiences I've ever had. Thank God I've never experienced anything like this in real life. It is not a scene for the faint of heart, and it is a technological masterpiece. It does not get any more real than this without your life being in mortal danger. The most amazing thing, though, is that when I saw this film in the theater with my dad, the last film he and I ever watched together, a couple brought a baby in a stroller to the film! A baby!! Wall-shaking gunfire. Heart-racing screams of men trying to survive, hollering to one another over countless explosions.

The baby didn't make a sound the entire movie. I swear, it must have been drugged, or it was the greatest baby in the history of babies. Perhaps they lived next to an airport or rifle range. I'll never know.

The opening is not my favorite scene, however. My favorite scene is by the small bridge they are defending at the end. It is a desperate situation. A small, severely out numbered band of men are sitting in the ruins of the town, waiting for the enemy to arrive for what will likely be the final moments of their lives. The tanks are coming. You can hear them creaking along, like slow-moving dragons, moaning in the distance. A record player is playing some old, sad song. The men gather around and tell stories from back home. Throughout the movie, you have come to know each one of them like they were your own brother. The tanks are coming closer and closer.

The night after I first watched this film, I had a dream that I was shopping in a grocery store. As I walked around and filled my cart with the essentials of life; milk, water, eggs, bread, cookies, I could hear the tanks in the background. As I was reaching for lettuce in the produce aisle, a massive Tiger tank crashed through the wall. I woke up. I was safe. No one knows how many people died in the Battle of Normandy, but it was in the tens of thousands.

46. BATMAN (1989)
directed by Tim Burton
starring Michael Keaton, Kim Bassinger, and Jack Nicholson

It did not take long for me to get to another comic book movie, did it? Well, to start with, Jack Nicholson as The Joker is one of the greatest casting moments in film. I think Nicholson, on the whole, is over-rated, but not here. Michael Keaton... not as great, but he does a surprisingly good job. He is so normal, but somehow this makes Batman that much more of an amazing thing. Kim Bassinger is solid, and Robert Wuhl's part as the Knox the reporter adds some addition character to the film. Character. That is what this film is all about.

Tim Burton is one of my favorite directors. He easily does the best job of creating a Batman world that combines the campiness of the old show in the 60s with the dark, sinister world that Batman was originally supposed to exist in. No one can create a unique world in a movie better than Burton, at least not as consistently as he has done. This film has a great ambiance, and I am a big fan of ambiance.

This film is filled with cute trivia (thanks, IMDB!). The Batman costume weighed 70 pounds. The Batmobile was built on a Chevy Impala chasis. The plastic surgeons tools are the same tools used by Steve Martin in "Little Shop of Horrors." Adam West was pissed off that he wasn't given the Batman part, despite the fact that he was something like 100 years old. Jack Nicholson took home $60 million for being in the film. The film also made $750 million from merchandise sales. The on-screen body-count: 56. This film is surprisingly violent. I was surprised to find out that my somewhat conservative mother-in-law lists this movie as one of her all-time favorites as well.

The overall thing that I like about this film is that, despite great ambiance and artistic impression, it is also fun. A lot of fun. This combo gets this film the #46 spot on my top 50 favorite movies.